Summer of Milan
by Ksip
Summary: We know Carlisle's story and the job he loves...but WHY did he decide to do it? This is what i think happened back then.Rated T for death. Not all canon.


**AN: Ok, so this is a one –shot I made about Carlisle. The part in Italics are from a book "The Betrothed" by Alessandro Manzoni, and while I was reading it in class I thought it would be perfect for explain the reason WHY Carlisle became a doctor. I don't think anyone else did it before… The time isn't exactly the same in Twilight, the book I took from was during the 1629-1630, and in Twilight it says that Carlisle was born more or less in 1650. I know that the Volturi and Carlisle never went to Milan, but in the book this scene is in Milan, so…well is in Italy too!**

**Disclaimer: I OWN NOTHING**

When Aro, Marcus and Caius asked me if I 'd like to go with them for a little visit to their friends I was sceptical, I mean, isn't sunny in Milan during spring?

And in that moment Aro took my hand and, after read my thoughts, he said

"Don't worry Carlisle, nobody will notice us and anyway Milan isn't very sunny these days, you'll see… it'll be like be alone in the streets".

I didn't fully trust him, but he seemed quite sure about was he was saying so I didn't complain.

Nothing could have prepared me for what I found. Milan during the summer of 1630 wasn't a city: it was a big grave.

There were no walking people around, only corpse carriers on wagon that went around happy , careless of the corpse they carried or the people who soon would have be one.

"So Carlisle, my dear friend, what do you think of Milan?" Aro asked me in his happy tone.

"Well, certainly is different from what I imagined" I answered. Truth is: Milan was disgusting.

In the air you smelled a disgusting smell that made reek the entire city: the smell of death, and you didn't need to be a vampire for smell it…death was everywhere.

The three brothers, one very happy the other two simply bored, walked with me along the streets that they seemed to know perfectly.

Aro was looking around like he was admiring the most wonderful picture or seeing the most spectacular dawn. Maybe for him death and pain were things absolutely fascinating, probably because so distant from our reality of indestructible and immortal creature.

I found everything absolutely disgusting.

After a while we entered a new street where there were others corpse carriers who were taking some deads.

I couldn't stand this monstrosity anymore. I was leaving Aro and his brothers when my gaze met a singular object of pity, a pity that made your soul contemplate it, and I , almost unwillingly, stopped dead in my tracks.

From one of the doors had came down, and was going towards the wagon, a woman, whose looks heralded an advanced youth, but not passed; and from her gleamed a veiled and dimmed beauty, but not damaged, from a great passion, and from a mortal languor: that delicate beauty and at the same time magnificent, that shines from the Lombard blood.

Her walk was fatigueted but not feeble; the eyes didn't give tears, but showed sign of having shed a lot of them; in that pain there was something calm and deep, that witness a soul all conscious and ready to feel it.

But it wasn't only her look that, among lots of misfortunes, induced her so particularly to pity, and enlivened towards her a feeling by now already faint and amortized in the hearts.

She was carrying at her neck a girl, maybe of nine years, dead; but well arranged, with her hair divided on her forehead, with a bright white dress, it was like those hands had adorned her for a party promised from a long time, and done as a prize.

She didn't carry her like a corpse, in a lying position, but supported by an arm, with her chest that rested on the woman's chest, as if she was alive; if not that a little hand hung down at the side, with an unanimated heaviness, and the head rested on the mother's shoulder with an abandon stronger than sleep.

A vile corpse carrier went to take the girl from her arms, but with a sort of respect, with an unwilling hesitation.

But she, taking a step back, without showing disdain or scorn said: "No! Don't touch her for now; I have to put her on this wagon: take these!". Saying so she opened a hand, revealing a little bag and she let it fall down in the corpse carrier's hand.

Then she went on: "Promise me that you won't touch one hair on her head, and that you won't let anybody do that, and that you'll bury her like this".

The man put a hand on his chest; and then, all attentive, and almost obsequious, made a little room on the wagon for the little girl.

The mother, gave her a kiss on the forehead, and laid her down as if on a bed, laid a white cloth on her face and said the last words: "Goodbye Cecilia! Rest in peace! This evening we'll come too, and we'll be together forever. Meanwhile pray for us, and I'll pray for you and the others".

Then, towards the corpse carrier: "You" she said "coming here in the evening will take me, and not only me".

Said so, she came back into the house and, a moment later she was at the window, another girl in the arms, alive but with the signs of death on her face.

She contemplated these unworthy exquies until the wagon moved, until she could see it, and then disappeared.

And what else could she do, if not lie on the bed with her last daughter, and be next to her and the others to die together? Like the flower already thriving on the stalk fall with the little flower still in bud, when it comes the sickle that mow the grass.

It was in that moment that Aro decided to talk: "Oh mio Dio! Have you seen it Carlisle! This was absolutely pathetic and disgusting…Can you smell them? Obviously you can, well you're probably wondering why they do smell so… bleah" he said shuddering at the mere idea.

"Yes, Aro I was wondering why a big city like Milan is so…empty and why the people are few, and these few are living dead" I smiled internally at my own joke, luckily Aro didn't catch it.

But Aro stayed silent, waiting for something I didn't know.

"Please dear brother, we are dying hear you answer. Grace us of the sound of you're wonderful voice and at the same time enlighten us with your wise ness" Caius said from behind us, teasing his brother, a smirk of pure evilness on his face.

"Well if you really want to know, in the entire region people are dying from this illness, the bubonic plague, in poor words, the pestilence." Concluded Aro proudly.

It was in that moment that I understood what I had to do.

In that moment I swore to myself that I won't let happen things like that ever again, if I could, or at least I would have done all in my power to prevent it.

I'd finally found the thing that could redeemed me from the monster I was, the thing with which I could be useful for the others, for the weak humans.

I'd finally understood how I could spend my time, what I could do in my existence: the doctor.

So, made my mind up, I excused myself to Aro, Caius and Marcus, and I went to plan my travel in the New World.

**an: I know, old work. oh well, i felt it needed to be shown again. thanks for reading and reviewing!**


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